


By the Grace of the purple Flame ~

by Kimory



Series: Ashes and Sparks [1]
Category: Promare (2019)
Genre: Character Study?, Comfort, How Do I Tag, Light Angst, M/M, Post-Canon, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-08
Updated: 2019-08-08
Packaged: 2020-08-13 01:35:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20165971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kimory/pseuds/Kimory
Summary: A few weeks after the events that shook the world, it has yet to stabilize, leaving those involved in difficult positions. Yet, life goes on.





	By the Grace of the purple Flame ~

**Author's Note:**

> First fic for Promare also i'm not a native english speaker, just sayin! ...... have fun reading :D !  
I'm keeping it short for the time being, kinda trying my hand with the characters and universe. I'll probably try to go for deeper stuff if I get the energy!
> 
> **!!! MASSIVE SPOILERS !!!** For those who haven't seen the movie, you've been warned ! It's much better to see it without knowing too much beforehand, I think :D ! Also some headcanons and personal interpretations.

  


“Lio. Lio !”

Someone’s shaking him awake… But he wasn’t even sleeping. He was listening to the silence – drowning into it, even. It was… unsettling. During the day, helping with the reconstruction was taking all his time, and kept the silence at bay. The loud noises covered the snickering of people disliking the former Burnish among them, even though their flames were gone. Such strong prejudice was hard to overcome, and conflict arose almost daily. Trying to solve things was like adding fuel to the fire – what an irony. And he couldn’t exactly defend himself, so it was pretty much up the whole Burning Rescue squad to stand up for the former Burnish, even him. Or especially him, as he was easy to consider responsible for most of the mess, even if he wasn’t. Galo did a good job, but naive ideals weren’t nearly enough to make people go out of their ways to accept them. It would take time.

  


But during the evening, during the night, there was nothing left to make him forget the disappearance of the Promares. It was for the best, of course, but only now all the Burnish were able to realize how precious their constant company had become. It’s become a habit, like they had known the flames’ chants forever, even though it’s been accompanied by so much suffering. And now it was like they’d been imaginary friends all along – friends who had been pretty much two minutes away from destroying the Earth. It wasn’t their fault, anyway. But as they went home, they were replaced by an almost sickening void, devoid of power, devoid of life. Going back to “normal” after all this time as an entity made of rumbling, humming fire… it felt all but _normal_.

  


The blue haired moron still was still slightly shaking him, his warm hand on his shoulder, so Lio snapped his attention towards Galo. He looked at him with his usual careless air, mixed with a hint of worry. Almost inquisitive. Their bond was growing into something strong – saving the world together DOES help.

“Lio? What’s up, man?”

Lio looked away, and made a gesture the way he’d have done to summon fire into his hand, before closing his fist and looking back at the one who saved his life.

“It’s different. Without our flames. Some of us miss them, for a lot of reasons. And I’m no exception. They were a part of us, the Promares.”

Galo tried to comprehend, without much success, even though he had experimented firsthand that the fire of the Promares could also protect. It could be warm and reassuring, without burning and destroying everything. It was… so like them, in the end, so like the Burnish. So like Lio. It wasn’t the first time he’d caught him like this, staring into the void while no one was here, but he thought it was mostly because of the people around constantly rejecting the Burnish. Though it wasn’t that surprising that Lio wasn’t hurt much by this. Or he hid it very well. Sadly, they were used to it – not living in the same realm, at all. Burnish were humans too, yet the gap between them was far too big to be crossed easily.

“That’ll… That’ll pass, right? You’ll get used to it!”

“I guess.” Yet he doubted it.

As night took over upon the sky, a cold gust of wind passed over the ruins of the still-wrecked area they were in, and Lio shivered uncomfortably. It was cold now, without an inner fire to maintain warmth. He frowned, trying to keep the unease from showing too much.

Galo was kind of stupid, but not blind altogether. “Let’s get back”, he suggested. He wore no jacket so he couldn’t possibly lend one to Lio, mind you. He didn’t want to drag him away either, because he understood why Lio could look for such an isolated spot to vent, one way or the other - he worked things out in pretty much the same way. And without the flames to vent the anger, to unleash the energy… he was probably left with a lot of things to ponder.

The shorter one would have liked to make a fire here and there, for it to illuminate the night. Even a regular one. He’d given up on seeing once again the grace of the purple flames. But to reassure people, former Burnish were banished from manipulating or having anything to do with any kind of fire until further notice. And any kind of bonfire was pretty unwanted. The trauma would be hard to overcome, for everyone.

  


As the Burning Rescue members were the more eager to protect the former Burnish, most of them lived around their headquarters for the time being. Most things being destroyed, one couldn’t really be picky about their accommodations.

By the time they neared the buildings, Lio had given up on suppressing his shivering, teeth chattering a bit. As the seasons edged towards winter, his now lack of tolerance towards cold was only getting worse – and pretty annoying. This, too, shall pass with time – he hoped. Nearly dying during the recent events probably didn’t help his strength, either.

Seeing the state of his partner, Galo had been frowning for a while. He opted to walk closer to him, shoulders bumping occasionally. 

“You alright ?” He asked.

Lio looked pointedly at him. As it was scary, he didn’t want to admit it, but he came to understand that he had relied a lot more than he thought on his Burnish powers and status. The phenomenon was more prominent in those like him, who had been powerful Burnish. Admitting that would have led him to answer _“no”_ but he wasn’t that desperate yet.

“It’s cold, that’s all.”

“Let’s hurry, then!”

Galo walked faster, and Lio picked up the pace to follow him.

The wind couldn’t reach inside the base, and it was comfortable enough. It lacked a good old fire, though. As it was late already, the room was empty from Burning Rescue members or the occasional Burnish hanging out – usually Gueira and Meis. They were all welcome, but most were still a bit scared. 

The TV was barely working, tuned on a blurry channel showing some info about the reconstruction and the actual state of the world. Some places had it much, much worse than Promepolis. Sighing, Galo zapped on another channel that miraculously tried to broadcast some old movie or something. The quality was so bad you couldn’t make out what it was exactly, but at least that wasn’t angsty news. Lio had opted to sit in the couch, trying to look dignified when really, the thing was so cosy he just wanted to melt in it and forget that his Burnish fellows were still persecuted in many places around the world. He couldn’t take it upon his sole shoulders to bring justice for his comrades anymore.

Galo didn’t help at all when he went on with the rich idea of dropping a heavy blanket on him, very unceremoniously. Maybe it was his way of helping.

“Oi!” Lio protested, for the show. He was torn between keeping the nicely warm blanket, or throwing it back to Galo because he didn’t fucking need to be pampered, and could go get stuff for himself if he wanted to. In the end, the blanket was too compelling. He kept it, arranging himself into a comfy burrito and trying not to think about how ridiculous he probably looked. Galo couldn’t help but find it cute… before chasing the thought away as he didn’t know what to do with it. Lio caught his eyes and sternly remarked: “No comments.”

  


A few minutes later though, lulled by the indistinct noise of the TV, he had let go of the facade and dozed off while Galo was away making tea or something. The blue haired one came back to a sleeping former Mad Burnish, and he pretty much didn’t know what to do, tilting his head on the side for a moment like a confused puppy. He ended up sitting beside him, trying not to wake him up, and sipped his warm drink, idly watching the TV.

  


▲▲▲

  


The gossip went wild the next day, after the early birds of the Burning Rescue had found them _both_ asleep in the couch. And Lio, with a hint of red on his cheeks, kind of kicked Galo a few times for having used him as a pillow.

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah they're something like dating and not knowing it or sth. Oblivious dorks will be oblivious.
> 
> Also, shoutout to all the fantastic ppl on the Promare Hell discord server !
> 
> What will the next episode be !? Bed hair Lio ? Serious angsty mess !? SMUT !!?? ALL OF IT ????? I DONT KNOW STAY TUNED !


End file.
